Comment by heipei

It's important to realise that you can't compare your rent with your mortgage payments without factoring in a lot of things. The rent you pay includes things like taxes, insurances, upkeep, depreciation, risk and opportunity costs that your landlord has to pay while still coming out ahead. And he has to deal with all the administrative things too. So if you're a homeowner yourself, ask whether you're still coming out ahead carrying those costs yourself, plus the risk that something around your house breaks, plus the risk that your home might lose value for another reason, plus the opportunity cost of your down-payment not being invested otherwise (e.g. stocks). At the end of the day, it depends on the location and how far apart the purchase prices have diverged from rents. With the current economic situation and low interest rates, house prices where I live have mostly broken away from rents so significantly that it doesn't make any sense to buy from a financial standpoint.